21 réponses à ce sujet

[Godeshus]

 While I haven't seen as many threads and posts about this as I would have imagined, It seems there are others out there who feel as I do. That is, I find it to be a little awkward to use. A few questions on the matter, as well as a suggestion:

1-Is there a revision of the Codex system planned for the future, be it via patch or expansion? If so, what can we expect?

2-Was it intentionally designed this way to be of more use to those who have a keener interest in backstory? What I mean by this is that it seems to be a system where you need to dedicate serious time to perusing. There is a Lot of information in it, but in order to get that information It seems that one needs to dedicate an afternoon to IT rather than to the gameplay. To some this is exciting and a welcome break from the game; to me it is not. Were those people the target audience for the codex, or is it that way simply because that's the way it was designed.

3-Were modders and scripters held in mind during the planning stages of the Codex? Ie. I confess that this is a part of the game I am not too keen on, although to be fair I am having a jolly old time running around the world of Ferelden without really using it all that much. I am one that loves to try out mods created by the community and give feedback to those that take a lot of time out of their day to provide us with fascinating new content for free. If this particular Design makes it easier for the modders to incorporate their stories and quests into it, then I may just change my opinion on this alone.

4(suggestion)-The witcher. Most brilliant system of in-game information management I have ever seen. I need not say anything else on the subject as it speaks volumes to those who have played it, and I'm sure the Devs at Bioware have seen it also.

While I'm sure there will be a lot of opinions and answers to these questions from the community, I would really appreciate hearing it from the horse's mouth as well.



EDIT: I realized later, after a few replies, that what I was referring to was not only the Codex, but the entire journal system in general, including quest information and all that Jazz. A small yet important difference, and my apologies for the confusion.

Modifié par Godeshus, 23 novembre 2009 - 09:53 .

[Loetek]

Think it is just a little extra something they throw in there to stretch out the gameplay time for the very few that actually stop and read every codex for full immersion... or whatever... i try and get every codex i can and may eventually go through and read everyone i come across.



My question is: are the codex's different for every PC Background? Or are they all the same... i wish they were more like the achievements so once you found on it stayed with your account.

[pinzig]

suggestion, when the little bar pops up saying "codex updated", click on it and it will show you what was just put in the codex. thus, you may peruse them in the bite sized morsels they come in rather than having a large backlog to handle. -my two cents.

[Achromatis]

One thing that really bothers me... If you have the Journal open on a quest and close the Journal, then reopen it it will be on whatever quest you had open. This doesnt work for Codex, which is really annoying. Tied to that is I would like it so that if you have a quest open and switch to the Codex it would switch to the Codex relating to that quest...

[pinzig]

Leo - the codexes ARE different for each background, some are available to you as one background while others are not.

I woiuld give an example, but this is the no spoilers forum.

[Achromatis]

You get different ones in different origins, but you still get the same ones eventually at some point.



SPOILERS?! Sort of, I dont really consider it a spoiler though.



An example is codexs pertaining to magic during the Mage origin, where you get the same ones on different characters when you do the Mage Tower place.

[Godeshus]

Leo- While I don't know for sure, I imagine once you complete the game you have the option to save. Then when you start a new game you would have a new character, but your Codex would carry over. This is just speculation as I have not completed.

[pinzig]

Achromatis wrote...

You get different ones in different origins, but you still get the same ones eventually at some point.

SPOILERS?! Sort of, I dont really consider it a spoiler though.

An example is codexs pertaining to magic during the Mage origin, where you get the same ones on different characters when you do the Mage Tower place.

so get lothias the dwarfson story off of the ash warriors in ostragar(as a dwarf), I DARE you!
p.s. if you are not a mage the tranquil in ost. will tell you how the deed goes down.
If you are a mage the tranquil won't say a thing, being sworn not to... tell mages? i guess.
and thats just ost, theres lots more.

Modifié par pinzig, 23 novembre 2009 - 08:29 .

[pinzig]

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Modifié par pinzig, 23 novembre 2009 - 08:30 .

[Auraad]

Foe for me ... I have seen so many better journals than this, so it really hurts.

[Sornin]

I enjoyed the codex quite a bit. The key is to not save it all for one big read, as that suffers from two problems. One, it is simply too much information, so it may feel like a chore. Secondly, you often pick up the codex entries at times it would be relevant to read them, so they are quite often time sensitive.



Complaining about the codex entries to me seems fruitless because you are basically complaining you simply do not want to read the backstory and other related lore. That is fine, but realize many of us do and have no problem with it. What do you really want from a change? Less content? Who does that benefit?



I suppose better organization is a possibility, but I have had no problems with it. Like I said earlier, I read them when they come up, spending a few minutes every now and then, instead of just charging through an entire segment of the game and then going back to read the mess of glowing entries that have built up.

[Beast Within]

I Have a 189 Codex Entries and read everyone.

The idea is not to let them pile up. I most times read them on the spot when I get them or if im in a dungeon or something, I might read them when I get back to camp after the dungeon.

Don't let em pile up or if you don't care for the backstory/lore, don't ream em. Simple.

Nothing they need to change. the codex is perfect.

Modifié par Beast Within, 23 novembre 2009 - 09:25 .

[Godeshus]

Sornin wrote...


Complaining about the codex entries to me seems fruitless because you are basically complaining you simply do not want to read the backstory and other related lore. That is fine, but realize many of us do and have no problem with it. What do you really want from a change? Less content? Who does that benefit?

Just to clarify this point it is not the content at all. The Content is Fine, and the amount of it is ok. There could be twice as much and that wouldn't bother me either. It's simply the way it is organized. Like I mentioned in the thread starter, The Witcher has an awesome journal system. If you haven't played it I recommend you do, or even if you have a friend that has it ask them to show you the journal. You'll notice right away why I would love to see something similar in DA:O. There is a Ton of Content in The Witcher Too, but it's really efficient to pinpoint exactly what you are looking for with minimal time spent on searching for it. 

Sornin wrote...

I suppose better organization is a possibility, but I have had no problems with it. Like I said earlier, I read them when they come up, spending a few minutes every now and then, instead of just charging through an entire segment of the game and then going back to read the mess of glowing entries that have built up.

This is a nice insight into my questions. For myself, backstory is less important than gameplay. I do occasionally open up the Codex and read some random entries when the mood strikes me, but not too often, and definitely not very often as soon as I get the entry. It could very well have been designed the way it was to encourage the player to do as you do, which would in turn provide for a much richer, and much longer game experience. I can see that, understand that, and respect the choices if this is the case. 

Can anyone from the Bioware team confirm this for me?

In an attempt to defend myself a little, though, I must say that I am not complaining. More like...I guess 'Wondering' fits the bill. Thanks for replying. You HAVE shed some light on this for me.

Modifié par Godeshus, 23 novembre 2009 - 09:48 .

[Raedris]

I read all mine, and quite like it. It's got plenty of info (which can help with some quests/fights), and each entry is a nice length so as to be not too long/short.



My only annoyance is that if you pick up an entry and don't read it, there's no way to change the ordering of the codex so new entries go to the top or something? If I forget the name of a book or some such I have to trawl through the list trying to work out the new one...(obviously it's easily fixed by me reading them as soon as they come up...!)

[Sornin]

I really should get to playing The Witcher. It is one of those games I sorted in the "looks great, but I have too many other really great games to play, so I will buy it one day" pile. I basically have heard it is good, has some interesting concepts, but suffers from a few flaws that keeps it from being close to a masterpiece.



Anyway, that "one day" is fast becoming "never" so I really should do something about it. But, with Mass Effect 2, BioShock 2, and Assassin's Creed II (PC) coming out in the next few months, my plate is full. Sequels, sequels, oh my!

[Godeshus]

Beast Within wrote...

I Have a 189 Codex Entries and read everyone.

The idea is not to let them pile up. I most times read them on the spot when I get them or if im in a dungeon or something, I might read them when I get back to camp after the dungeon.

Don't let em pile up or if you don't care for the backstory/lore, don't ream em. Simple.

Nothing they need to change. the codex is perfect.

The Codex is NOT perfect. Even if I DID read all entries as they come along, If I wanted to go back and read an entry that I picked up 3 weeks previous, I would still have quite a bit of digging to do.

[nisallik]

I didn't find the codex entries a problem at all, but I am the sort of player that scoured the world in Morrowind to collect all the books. Unfortunately, Bethesda got lazy for Oblivion and recycled what seemed to be 90-95% of the books of Morrowind into it.



Anyways, I'm glad that BioWare put the effort into putting so much lore into this game and I also loved the additional huge lore section that was in the Prima guide... I love you BioWare. ;p

[nisallik]

Godeshus wrote...

The Codex is NOT perfect. Even if I DID read all entries as they come along, If I wanted to go back and read an entry that I picked up 3 weeks previous, I would still have quite a bit of digging to do.

Why would you want to know when you read a certain codex entry?  They are all titled and placed in specific sections for a quick lookup if you want to look them up again.

[Jordi B]

I don't like the Codex very much. I think it's fine that all the lore and information is there, but the organization just sucks. I can never find anything. Often I don't even know in what category I should look (notes or quest related for instance). I realize this is much less of a problem when you read all the entries the moment you get them, but I still think it's inexcusable. Also, sometimes you may want to read something again. And sometimes I'm just too slow to click on the message and then I just figure 'never mind, I don't want to go looking through my codex for this entry'.



I also don't like the mixture of the codex with the inventory and the journal. Sometimes, although not that often, you will find a note that will take up room in your inventory. When you 'read' this note from the inventory, almost no text is there, because the text is in your codex. It would have been much nicer if they would have just put the text on the item description, or maybe just a link to the correct codex entry.

Also, for some quests the journal will give a really vague description and then a much more informative description is available in the codex. Again, there is no link to it, so you have to go to the codex, guess the category and then systematically go over each of the numbered entries to get the right one.



It would probably have been a lot nicer if we could see the titles of the entries (instead of the numbers) and maybe even where/when we got them. I really hope someone makes a mod for this.

[Asger]

The main problem with the Codex is that you need to mouse over each entry to see what it is. FWIW, this seems to me to also be the main difference between the Codex and The Witcher's system, really. The Witcher also had the contents of each category organized alphabetically, IIRC, which I'm not sure the Codex does consistently (the "Creatures" tab has the creatures in alphabetical order, but I'm not sure any of the other tabs do).



Personally, I've got a different gripe with it: It sometimes tells you things that you have no way of knowing. There's a particular fairly early on where a party member will avoid answering a question and change the subject in a hurry. Then, when the conversation ends, you get a "Codex Updated" message, and it turns out the codex has been updated to show the stuff the NPC didn't tell you.



That's just weird.

[Godeshus]

Asger wrote...

The main problem with the Codex is that you need to mouse over each entry to see what it is. FWIW, this seems to me to also be the main difference between the Codex and The Witcher's system, really. The Witcher also had the contents of each category organized alphabetically, IIRC, which I'm not sure the Codex does consistently (the "Creatures" tab has the creatures in alphabetical order, but I'm not sure any of the other tabs do).

Personally, I've got a different gripe with it: It sometimes tells you things that you have no way of knowing. There's a particular fairly early on where a party member will avoid answering a question and change the subject in a hurry. Then, when the conversation ends, you get a "Codex Updated" message, and it turns out the codex has been updated to show the stuff the NPC didn't tell you.

That's just weird.

Lol I don't remember that but that is weird.